


Care and Treatment of Psychologically Fucked Up Starship Captains (The Everybody's Fine Remix)

by likeadeuce



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Domestic, Multi, Remix, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy wasn't really writing a treatise about his captain's mental health.  But over a few weeks of vacation, he wondered if he should have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Care and Treatment of Psychologically Fucked Up Starship Captains (The Everybody's Fine Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VegaOfTheLyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VegaOfTheLyre/gifts).
  * Inspired by [and the water rolls down the drain](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/762) by VegaOfTheLyre. 



> This is a remix of "and the water rolls down the drain," but it does contain a small allusion to "Name the Stars." Not part of the remix, and not necessary to understand the plot, but kind of an Easter egg.
> 
> Thanks to Resolute for beta-ing.

They weren't really keeping a list.

At least, at the time Christine first mentioned it, no one had started the list yet. When you were a nurse, or a doctor, making lists was much too much like what you did at work -- organizing, categorizing, making sure you didn't miss a single detail, knowing the consequences could be catastrophic. McCoy loved his work, but he was very happy (determined, in fact) to spend his vacation as far from it as possible. Christine, he was reasonably certain, felt the same.

They lay together on the couch in the McCoy family farmhouse, Christine's back against McCoy's chest and her ash-blonde hair falling lightly across his shoulder. It was July in Georgia, and theoretically there was climate control in the old building. But they left the windows open and a few creaky fans running, doing what little could be done to stir the cross breeze. Their lives gave them so little time to breathe real Earthside air, it wasn't a chance any of them wanted to squander. McCoy could easily imagine that Christine, weighed down by the heat, her sweat beading against his skin, shared his ambition never to move from this spot again.

Jim, of course, was trying to build a fire.

He had pushed the grille aside and was exploring the grate with a poker. God knew what he thought he was going to burn. Maybe all this was just an excuse for motion, a reminder that however weary the rest of the world might grow, Jim would always be moving. It was like having an energetic puppy, McCoy thought, or a small child. At any given moment, it was hard to decide if you should be proud of his initiative or irritated that he wouldn't just let you rest.

"Along with having a violent death wish," Christine said in Jim's general direction, "and a strange magnetic attraction to sheer cliffs and all those many strange sexual proclivities, you're also a pyromaniac." Tilting her head back to look at McCoy, she said, "Add it to the list."

"Noted," McCoy said, thinking that Christine always managed to choose a third option. Neither proud nor irritated. Just amused. As though Jim were an energetic puppy, or child, who most decidedly belonged to someone else. She could play with him when it pleased her, then give him back. McCoy wondered how well she understood that he didn't share this luxury, where Jim Kirk was concerned.

"You're keeping a list?" Jim demanded.

"I'm thinking of writing a case study. Or something," McCoy said. He decided he was entitled, at the moment, to play along with Christine's archness. "A Treatise on the Care and Treatment of Psychologically Fucked-Up Starship Captains."

Christine squeezed McCoy's hand. "It's a long list," she said.

They managed to talk Jim out of building the fire, and after a while he picked up the copy of _East of Eden_ that they'd been taking turns reading. It was the only print book in the house. McCoy's own small collection was in his cabin on the _Enterprise_, and since they could pull anything they wanted to read off the networks, it hadn't seemed worth the trouble to transport anything so whimsical as a book. But something about the slow pace of life here, the realness of it, made the solidity of print seem right, just as it would have been incongruous to turn on the air conditioning or eat replicated food. Jim was flipping the pages with his thumb when McCoy dozed off.

He woke alone and sat upright. The sun was setting, the heat had broken slightly, and he was by himself in the living room. Hearing the rise and fall of Jim and Christine's voices on the veranda, McCoy almost rolled back over. But his eyes fell on the single book on the coffee table -- turned facedown, the spine cracked. _Dammit, Jim!_ Real books were hard to replace. He rose to close the book and set it back down, then saw beside it a white sheet of paper, headed in Jim's careful handwriting (the painstakingly neat print he used when trying to prove he was organized and responsible, not the illegible scrawl he always eventually descended into), which said "THE LIST." Underneath this, in all caps, Jim had added "PYROMANIC! (unproven)," and "magnetic attraction to sheer cliffs". Christine's loopy, unapologetically girlish script took over then, adding "Violent Death Wish" and "Strange Sexual Proclivities" -- the last followed by several question marks that once again looked like Jim's.

McCoy went to the kitchen, used a magnet to attach the paper to the old fashioned refrigerator, then found a pen and added a few items of his own. "Mutually abusive relationship with hedge clippers," "Leaps before looking." "Shoots before asking questions" and, to crown it off, "Reprograms Spock's simulations without telling him." Then, looking at his work, he circled each of his own entries, and Jim's two as well, drawing arrows from these to "Violent Death Wish". McCoy had never had much time for Freud, but sometimes a cigar _was_ a cigar.

He went out to the veranda and asked, "Dinner?"

McCoy had cooked too much the night before, to avoid starting the oven again, and they all helped themselves. This meant that Jim gnawed on a turkey leg while musing over the list on the fridge. McCoy wondered whether he would comment on the "Death Wish", but instead Jim wrinkled his nose and said, "I wish I knew what you meant by _strange_ proclivities."

"Use your imagination," said Christine. She lifted the pen toward him and nodded at the list. "Surprise us."

Jim took the pen and wrote industriously for several minutes, apparently not stopping for thought. Then he stepped back, and the others came to read his handiwork.

"Wow," said McCoy.

"Who do you know who has tentacles?" said Christine.

"It's not necessarily all stuff I've done. 'Proclivity' just means I'm possibly interested."

"It means," said McCoy, "that you should see his porn collection."

"Can we --" Christine giggled, "-- access that from here?"

"We could," Jim said doubtfully, "if you think you'd like that better than the real thing. . ."

They all went to bed, after that, but despite the innuendo, it was nothing they hadn't done before. It wasn't even anything Jim and McCoy hadn't done _sober_, and -- with other girls or not -- before they ever met Christine. McCoy wondered, sometimes, if she realized what being Jim's roommate at the Academy had meant, but most of the time he assumed that she did.

Afterwards, they were hotter and more tired than ever, disinclined to move but still far from sleep. Christine took her place, lying against McCoy under a single sheet. Jim commandeered all the pillows, and made a little shelter for himself at the foot of the bed. Then he got up just enough to reach for the light switch, at which point Christine gasped, "No!"

McCoy tightened an arm around her waist and said, "She likes to leave a light on."

Jim's brow wrinkled. "Seriously?" Then he fell back onto the bed. "Shit," he said, "shit, I'm sorry. I forgot about --"

Christine held up a hand to keep him from going on. "It's fine," she said. "I know it's silly. It's fine. I'm fine."

"Good," Jim said quietly. "I'm fine, too." And they lay together in the heat and not-quite-dark, while McCoy wondered about how "fine" could mean "not fine at all." Maybe, he thought, putting them all on forced leave _had_ been a good idea.

*

There wasn't a treatise, either. Whatever insights McCoy might have acquired into psychologically fucked-up starship captains -- well, he was a physician, not a shrink. In Earth terms, his specialty would have been classified under "emergency medicine," but there was inevitably more to a Chief Medical Officer's job than that. His duties encompassed alien forensics, epidemiology of previously unknown diseases, experimental surgery and yes, from time to time, a stint as chief psychoanalyst and hand holder.

But McCoy wasn't even qualified as a counselor, much less did he feel like the man to say that the entire crew of a Galaxy-class starship _must_ take a month's vacation, whether they wanted it or not. Granted, McCoy had put his name on the order, and included his own official-sounding justification to make the whole exercise more convincing. He had felt no guilt about doing it. Statistically, the _Enterprise_ had the youngest overall crew to complete such a grueling tour during peacetime. They were next set to ship out on a five year mission headed for uncharted territory, a duration that was unprecedented in the time since the invention of the warp drive. They could, all of them, benefit from some time away before a departure like that.

McCoy had put his name on the order, but the idea had originated with Jim -- with a winking, grinning Jim at that, the subtext of his suggestion being, "Look at me now, getting away with _this_".

But now, lying awake in the heat and the dim light, McCoy found himself wondering if Jim had meant it. If Jim Kirk, of all people, not only wanted time away from his ship, but needed it. It was hard to believe but, then, Jim had been surprised that Christine was afraid of the dark. Unflappable Chapel, they'd called her, when she had joined the medical staff, and she deserved the designation if anyone did. But after what happened that night on the ghost planet, even Unflappable Chapel couldn't help being a little flapped. McCoy understood that about Christine, but hardly anyone else did. It was exactly the way she wanted it.

And if she could hide a thing that, why not Jim? Making breakfast the next morning, McCoy hovered over the infamous list. Christine had added a few more (entirely accurate) items under "sexual proclivities," but McCoy's eyes stayed on the circles and arrows pointing to "Violent Death Wish." How many times did you have to make a joke before you wondered if it was true?

"Did I leave anything off?"

McCoy started, and turned to see Jim slouching in the doorway. "Leave anything off the, ah. . ." McCoy recovered his characteristic rumble to say, "The proclivities. Well, you know. It's like Christine says. We expect you to surprise us."

"Ahh. Christine." Jim pressed his lips together, then looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. They heard water running in the bathroom. Jim turned back to McCoy. "Do you think Christine's all right?"

"No," McCoy said. "Of course she's not all right. Her hands shake if the lights go out, because it reminds her of the time she almost got eaten by a bunch of shadow monsters on a deserted space outpost. Not to mention all the times _you_ almost died, and she was the one who had to stitch you up."

"Oh," Jim said. "I can see . . . I can see you're worried about her, then."

"No."

"No?" Jim blinked. "You lost me there, Bones. She's not all right. . . but you're not worried?"

"I'm not worried about Christine because I know what's going on with Christine. I know because she lets me know, and I know she'll always let me know." McCoy crossed his arms and did his best to give his friend a significant look.

"Uh huh. That's as opposed to . . .just hypothetically . . .inviting herself along on your vacation and maiming herself with hedge clippers?"

"Something like that," McCoy muttered.

"Because, obviously, _that_ kind of behavior is a cry for help."

"Are you making fun of me, Captain?" He should have known better than to try to get away with a sneak attack on Jim Kirk, even a verbal one.

Jim reached over McCoy to rip the list from the fridge. "Just returning the favor." Quickly and sharply, Jim folded up the paper and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm holding onto this." Then he put a hand on McCoy's shoulder and leaned close. "Listen. I'm fine."

"Of course you are." McCoy's crossed arms tightened. "We're all fine. Everybody's fine."

"Bones. I promise. I'm not taking a starship full of people across the galaxy in order to fulfill some kind of violent death wish."

"And I'm supposed to trust you on that? Trust you with the safety of hundreds of people _including_ myself and my. . .Christine."

"I don't know if you're _supposed_ to trust me. But you do. You know why?" At that, Jim stretched out his bare arm showing the mark where Christine had sutured his cuts, after the previous day's abortive attempt at yard work. "Because," he began --

"Because," McCoy finished, unfolding his arms and touching Jim's still reddened skin. "We both know you're perfectly capable of getting killed in my backyard, trying to cut the hedges."

"That's right." Jim lifted his fingers to rest on the back of McCoy's head. "The stars don't call to us because we want to get away from all of this and die out there in the dark and the cold. The stars are what we need to go after so that this, all of this down here on Earth -- so that all of this will matter. Does that make sense?"

"Not especially." McCoy leaned toward him, letting Jim's lips touch his forehead. "Not at all, really. But it sounds nice."

"That's what I was thinking, too," Jim said, and they both started to laugh. But then McCoy stepped closer and they started to kiss. Once they'd started, they didn't stop for a while. It made so much more sense than talking.

Inevitably, Christine found them. "Boys?" They turned slowly toward her. "I was just thinking. Coffee?"

"Coffee is an excellent thought," McCoy announced. He was moving to kiss Christine, when Jim's hand on his bare arm stopped him.

"Bones," Jim said. "Because it just occurred to me that nobody has asked. How are _you_?"

"Me?" McCoy smiled. "Why, Captain. I'm fine."

"Good," Jim's hand fell from McCoy's shoulder. "Because. I was just remembering. Down by the creek, down in the brush, I saw some chickens running wild. I followed them for a while and I think I have an idea where they're nesting. And nests have eggs, and nothing would go with fresh coffee like. . .fresh . . eggs. . .what?"

"Down by the creek?" said Christine.

"Down in the poison ivy?" said McCoy. "And stinging nettles? And, I think, just possibly, quicksand?"

Jim's eyebrows shot up. "Quicksand? Since when have you had quicksand?"

"Oh, great," said Christine. "There's another one. Leonard, honey. What did we do with that list?"


End file.
